Basic brewing software

[Darren Jeory]

QUOTE="cossie.j, post: 998692, member: 24369"]
Brewfather is a great tool to have. I actually find it to be more reliable than the grainfather one I used to use. It’s free, but you can pay a fee to upgrade later if you find it helps with your process.
[/QUOTE]

Brewfather is awesome...if you wanna brew it chances are it has a recipe for it

 

[dwhite60]

I just signed up with Brew father. Thought I would give it a try.

I've been using BrewTarget and have been happy with it. Will probably stick with it as I already have everything set up and tuned in.

 

[fury_tea]

I have been looking at these programs and liked the look of Beersmith.
I'm a bit confused with it though. It says it's for the computer, but you need to buy a separate mobile app for the phone.
Since I'm not likely to be in the shed with the computer, I'm wondering how it gets to the phone.
How do you get on with it?

Beersmith is pretty good, but I find the phone app thing a bit of a con - it should be included in the subscription in my opinion. I pay a yearly subscription fee for the pc app so I'll often just build my recipes etc in the house and print the recipe out, or use my laptop in the garage.

The app itself works great and all my recipes are stored there which is handy but it's certainly not as pretty as Brewfather. It feels a bit dated in design in comparison I think. A bit Windows XP.

Haven't found the need to switch because I already paid my year subscription for Beersmith and it does what I need.

 

[Galena]

Brewfather for me, great interface, great phone app, cloud based so all kept up to date, an online library of recipes. I used the free version for about a year but have recently gone with the premium.

 

[Polcho]

Brewfather for me, great interface, great phone app, cloud based so all kept up to date, an online library of recipes. I used the free version for about a year but have recently gone with the premium.

So does that mean that you can use it on the desktop, then just use the phone or pad on brew day somewhere else?

 

[Galena]

So does that mean that you can use it on the desktop, then just use the phone or pad on brew day somewhere else?

Yes, that's what I do. I use the desktop to create recipes etc. the way BF works is it has recipes and batches, so once you have a recipe you want to brew you click brew and it becomes a batch, the batch is the same recipe but you can adjust it anyway you want, so batch size, malt , hops etc but it does not alter the original recipe, only the batch.
On brew day, I use the app and it has a brew tracker with alarms for when to add ingredients etc. It's a bit of a learning curve but easy once you understand the recipes vs batches idea.

 

[Polcho]

Thanks, that’s made me looking that one further.

 

[phillc]

Another user of Brewtarget. Been reasonably happy with it. Not tried anything else.

 

[Bill_g]

I have been looking at these programs and liked the look of Beersmith.
I'm a bit confused with it though. It says it's for the computer, but you need to buy a separate mobile app for the phone.
Since I'm not likely to be in the shed with the computer, I'm wondering how it gets to the phone.
How do you get on with it?

I use Beersmith 3 and find it useful & reliable. Excellent library of ingredients. Nice brew day recipe prints. Pretty easy to use (but I'm no beginner when it comes to PCs and software). As it's a commercial product it looks like the mobile app is sold separately (£4.99 for Android). I haven't tried it but I would guess it's the same back end with a mobile optimised user interface. it would run independently so no PC version needed however the PC interface makes full use of the big screen. If you had both versions I guess you could pass recipes via the included cloud features.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

Beersmith3 but it might be a bit much to start out. I bought the one time payment on sale. I’m 50 brews on the program and just getting into most of the features such as water and elevation adjustments. The brew day print out is good. At the end of a brew day I convert my scribbles into the recipe. The ingredient updates are good and Brad is awesome at getting back if you have a question. Folks in the brew club are back and forth on mobile so im sticking with brew day printout.

 

[Crappyfish]

I use Beertools pro its American but can be tweaked for the UK market. One off payment was more the attraction than a subscription based one.

 

[Polcho]

Yes, I don’t like monthly subscriptions. Looked into Brewfather again. There is an annual fee option too.
I have settled on Brewfather now.

I’ll download it at some point and try to work out how to use it. Which might be tricky since all I’ve done so far is read about it

 

[Galena]

Yes, I don’t like monthly subscriptions. Looked into Brewfather again. There is an annual fee option too.
I have settled on Brewfather now.

I’ll download it at some point and try to work out how to use it. Which might be tricky since all I’ve done so far is read about it

If you get stuck, give me a shout and if I am able will try and help

 

[Polcho]

Thanks very much.

 

[RichardMW]

Another Brewfather user here. It's fantastic.

But does anyone know if there is a way to add all of my old extract kit notes into it as batches without having a recipe in the first place?
They're not detailed notes, just name of kit, dates of critical process steps, SG readings, temperatures.
So just the ability to add a "custom" batch based on notes would be good.